Middle Love (2023)

Middleman's Disgrace

It's hard to believe that Middleman's Love and Bed Friend are in any way connected. They're so completely different, it's almost jarring. While I wouldn't say that Middleman's Love was a series I was hotly anticipating, I was curious about it and looking forward to it to some degree. Bed Friend had a host of issues, but Jade was not one of them. I thought Yim's portrayal of him was a bit one note and there just wasn't a whole lot to the character, but with the focus on him and a proper storyline, there was potential. Unfortunately what we got was a complete disaster. Where Bed Friend tried to be darkly sexy with a healthy dose of trauma thrown in, Middleman's love went for a rom-com feel, heavy on the slapstick comedy. It doesn't work and it was almost physically painful to get through. If it was any more than the eight episodes it was, I would have bailed and I very nearly did within the first fifteen minutes, but clung on because of comments that it improved. And while there is some improvement in the last two episodes, it's far too little, too late to make a difference.

The story is a pretty generic office romance between an employee and his intern. It had the potential to be cute, but there's so much crap and unnecessary drama to bog it down that it's anything but. And sometimes that's redeemable if the characters are likeable, but they weren't. I guess there's the theme that there's someone for everyone, but it definitely could have been done better. I was put off almost immediately by the animation sequence that started things off. It was weird and unexpected and pointless. There were a couple more instances of that and they failed to add anything beneficial. They just continued to be weird and pointless. Equally off-putting was the abundance of comedic sound effects. Those were eventually toned down, but still very much overused. Given the title, I anticipated the fact that Jade always found himself in the middle would play a larger role than it did. In effect, it really played no role as it was mentioned a couple times, but that was about it. I think the drama could have been much more interesting if they had leaned into that concept and how always being in the middle really affected Jade. The NSFW scenes were...interesting to say the least. The scene between Gus and Tong felt abrupt. There had been the whole push and pull between them for a while, but when they finally got to the point where they were a couple, they immediately jumped into bed. To me, it felt out of character and out of place. Jade and Mai's scenes were even more out of character. Considering how Jade is Jade and that he was a virgin, the level of sensuality he gave was not believable to me. There needed to be some awkwardness and fumbling and not straight to sex god. Also going to say that the two of them eating the rose was just weird. There were, however, a couple things that I did appreciate like the theme of consent that continued over from Bed Friend. Gus actually verbally giving consent to Tong was nice to see. I also really liked both Jade's and Mai's families and how supportive and loving they were. With Jade's family, the conversation they had where they acknowledged his feelings was very well done and I wish we'd had more scenes like that.

The characters were pretty much irredeemable trash.
-Jade in Bed Friend was cute, a bit quirky and eccentric, but not in a bad or obnoxious way. He was a good, loyal friend who seemed to have a solid head on his shoulders. But with this series, it's like they took his eccentricities and magnified them a thousand times to the point where it didn't even seem to be the same character. And that was a major downfall because Jade ended up feeling more like a caricature than a character. He was loud, awkward, and painfully self-conscious, not at all cute. Other than getting over his fear of rejection to pursue Mai, there was very little character development. There was a lot of potential for Jade and if they had retained his original character, I think the romance between him and Mai could have been quite sweet.
-Mai was a besotted puppy who truly was essentially perfect. He was not one of those characters who seems perfect on the outside, but as things progress his flaws are shown. No, he was portrayed as being the perfect employee, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect son, everything. He lacked any kind of dimension or interest. He revolved around Jade and that was it.
-Ueau and King returned to serve as love advisors for Jade and Mai. We didn't get to see a whole lot of them outside that role, but the few moments we did revolved around petty drama. The fact that Ueau couldn't have a simple conversation with another man without King getting his hackles up was absurd. And while Ueau was still pretty much himself, they neutered King. In Bed Friend, he was confident and sexy, and while he pretty much always caved to Ueau, he had a personality and was his own man. Middleman's Love saw him turned into a simpering puppy whose most frequent line was calling Ueau Teerak (darling). Sort of cute the first time or two, but it quickly became redundant. He as a name, King, consider using it. Also, be done with the jealousy. It's not cute.
-Gus and Tong were a cute secondary couple, but their back and forth and where they stood got confusing at times. It would seem like they were getting somewhere and then next scene Gus would be sulking for some inexplicable reason. They needed more screen time to really build on their relationship. Also found Tong's comment that Gus never annoyed him and that he was just foul-mouthed to be utter BS. You were acting very annoyed a time or two there, sir, being foul-mouthed had nothing to do with it.

I'm not going to hate on the actors because they had garbage to work with. The script was a disaster and should have been shredded then burnt. Watching the behind the scenes, you can see how much effort they put into it, but there was just no saving it. As much as I couldn't stand Jade, I will give Yim all the kudos because I can only imagine how hard portraying him was. Playing high energy characters like that is exhausting, but he remained consistent. Tutor, again, just had nothing to work with. I know he's a good actor, but there were so many close ups that I don't think he had a chance to really spread his wings. He wasn't wooden though which he easily could have been and there was expression in his eyes so I'll give him that.

The production needs to be fired. How they looked at any of this and thought, yeah, this looks great is beyond me. They let down their actors who deserved so much better and they let down the fans who had been looking forward to this. There were a number of scene cuts that were very awkward and really killed the flow and tone as well as a few scene jumps that were equally awkward. In both cases, they made the story progression more confusing than it needed to be. The opening credits with the bobbleheads was not cute or funny. That was one of my first indications that this series was not going to be what I expected. And the music, particularly during the NSFW scenes was either forgettable or distracting. For the NSFW scenes, it didn't fit and I ended up muting eventually. I don't understand why they feel music is necessary for those kinds of scenes. If you have to have it, use instrumental pieces, it flows better.

To sum it up, Middleman's Love was a dumpster fire that should never have been made as is. The few cute or wholesome scenes are buried so deep, you have to sift through a mountain of garbage to find them. This is such a case of wasted potential and I hope Tutor, Yim and the other actors are given better opportunities to show their talents cause this was not it.

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Disappointing

Let’s start by saying that I read the book and loved it. my impression of the show began off with how disappointing the adaptation is. Imagine my shock when episode one they changed the entire timeline from the book. Which meant everyone’s motivations now had to be completely rewritten. Mai stayed pretty much the same but now he has a fellow intern magically show up to handle the plotline where Jade thinks Mai should pair up with Ae. and because Ae and King are no longer an integral part of the main plot they’re shunted to the side and all the friendship chemistry goes sideways.

Ae is supposed to be a quiet smart influence on Mai. Helping him along with wooing Jade. but since Jade no longer needs to misunderstand that relationship that meaning is lost.

Jade is supposed to be a “mid” character. quietly helping everyone around him yet he’s rewritten and (surely coached) to be loud and, let’s be honest, slightly annoying, instead of kind and self defeating. you get more incite into his character through his brothers conversation with Mai in the last episode than you do in the enitre series.

Honestly, I could go on for pages and pages so instead I’ll try to keep it short. I know this series suffered from a lot of changes and recasting in the beginning but instead of getting better due to the delays is seems like they ended up having too much time to make too many changes and they got lost somewhere in the middle and ended up lost out in the wilderness of story land.

in short, my suggestion is to go read the book, I enjoyed it. the adaptation should be enjoyed for purely seeing Tutor and Yim interactions. I’d suggest skipping episodes 2-4 though. Yim isn’t really allowed to have emotional range until that episode.

gosh. I’m still suffering from the disappointment.

if you want to see how adaptations should be done go watch the Thai adaptation of the Japanese BL manga Cherry Magic.

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Mosly unwatchable but with some nice moments

Perhaps there are viewers who enjoy this sort of romantic comedy/farce, but I find the main character just too pastiche in rather annoying sort of way. I couldn't take him seriously, couldn't empathize with him, and eventually just fast forwarded through a lot of his screen time. If only the character arcs had been as well defined as the abdomens on show the basic storyline might have yielded a decent series at this length, but instead we get a very jerky and episodic stream of comedic set pieces and mostly stiff dramatic acting from the support cast.
Mostly Jade needs to be more loveable. The basic story is reasonable: an otaku who is resigned to experiencing love vicariously through the friends he tries to mediate between finds someone who sees beneath the surface to find him much more attractive than he seems at first blush. But for that to work we need to see more of what actually makes Jade loveable, and we just don't see enough of that to empathize with them.
There are some nice moments and some decent acting here and there, e.g. some of the emotions shown as interactions are Rashomoned are well acted and work to some extent; or the moments Jade and Mai spend looking through Jade's sketch notebook of Jade's time with his new intern.

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Perfect series to relax and have a good time

What can I say ?
I was super excited to see this serie from the trailer and because of the previous one Bed friend, who have watched know ?.

For those that were bothered as me, because of the inner voices that we are able to hear almost all the time, in my opinion it smoothened throughout the episode.

Now about the serie... I think is mainly good and nice to watch, please keep on mind that it won't be the same as BF, as they try to explore and enlight different aspects.

I liked the performance of the character's pair portrayed by NetJames, TutorYim and LeoTai because it's presented a vision of both introverted and extroverted persons, their strugglings, behaviours and actions;

Also it's a challenge produce a serie with 8 episodes only and 3 couples, but I have to say that they made a good work, I doesn't feel like they were rushing the events ( I have seen the uncut version?) .

I got the feeling that this year Thai BL are taking to another level, challenging themselves more and more ... for the point I mentioned earlier they made a good job.

With this serie I had a really good time, a chill serie that leave a taste of happiness.

Hope that my review would be helpful?

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trash

jade acts like a 5 year old girl in this whole series. how in hell he cannot figure out mai is the one falling for him. even a blind person can tell mai is in love with jade. we wasted 5 to 6 episodes and jade please stop screaming like a girl in your next series. we don't like it. to be honest the side couples should be in the main roles cause they act like they are in their age range like a grown adult. and of course I love to see king and uea together. and production team, stop playing the ost every 5 seconds I hate the song cause I listened the ost for a billion times.
and for the family of mai, mai's mother is so fake. I can tell she does not want mai to be gay. I can see in her eyes. I love jade's family at least they can act they are supportive to jade.
and finally this series is trash

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How sad

IQIYI and Mandee should be ashamed of themselves and the CEO's & script writers should have to give personal apologies to both Tutor & Yim. This was horrible!!!! I 1,000% percent watched it to the end because of Tutor and Yim. For fans to wait so long to be handed this pile of crap is aggravating. It has potential, especially if they hadn't made Yim's character and total freaking clueless idiot!! Had they left him the way he was in Bed Friends I feel like it would have been so much better. I'm hoping the novel isn't this bad. Anyway..
. It sucked and hopefully Tutor and Yim can bounce back because I freaking love them in everything else.

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QUANDO FOI QUE O JADE FICOU TÃO CHATO?

Essa série vem logo após "Bed Friend" que é uma das minhas séries favoritas de todos os tempos mas nessa aqui a qualidade caiu muito.
Em "Bed Friend" o Jade era engraçado e inocente na medida (era até mesmo fofo), mas aqui eles exageraram demais no quesito comédia e ficou parecendo uma série infantil, você sente muita vergonha alheia em várias cenas.
Jade e Mai não funcionam pra mim, a química é baixa e eles são bem sem graça, eu estava muito mais interessada em tudo que estava acontecendo ao redor com todos os outros personagens do escritório.
Eu gostaria muito de ter visto mais do Bas, ele e seus problemas pareciam muito mais interessantes que todo o resto, e é claro que eu estava obcecada por cada migalha de King e Uea porque eu sou apaixonada por eles.
Enfim, o que segurou minha nota na média foi a comedia paralela que estava acontecendo no escritório, os personagens coadjuvantes e o carinho que eu tenho por "Bed Friend".

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Trying to put unnecessary comedy ruined the series

Sorry not sorry!!!
It was a disaster and here are some facts I think were fuel to it:

1. I couldn't concentrate in most of the episode with Jade's continuous shouting through the episode. GOD!!! It just made me super exhausted just by looking at him
2. Why make Jade's character so dumb and annoying just to introduce a comedic angle to the story(which i didn't even found funny). I haven't read the novel but wasn't Jade's character meant to be Kind and Naive. Not dumb and annoying.
3. Trying to stretch the story, by letting Jade not ignoring all the obvious flirting by Mai and still Jade trying to match him up with someone else..
4. Why KingUea are soo different here than they were in Bedfriend and had so little screentime
5. Jade character should have been given more influence of how he was the middleman and also exploring his backstory more.


I think the whole blame for this is to be given to the writers and directors. I will explain why:
It's said that an actor is a directors product. So in general there are high chances of having bad perfomance of the actors ,if the direction is bad. Well in some cases the actors are equally bad in acting as well. But this was not the case here. We have seen Tutor and Yim before, they are decent actors. I personally was cheering for them when they were given their own series as leads. They have good chemistry and are visually appealing as well.
I was left utterly disappointed .

Anyway the second couple were cute and were the only thing that made me watch the series through the end.

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If you can handle cringe and full comedy it may be for you

Actually I find it disappointing... why? because the story have a potential, its actually unique a middleman who finally can have his own love life but suddenly it turns out boring, cringe and and not that good. Yim did a great acting in the cutie pie the series so I had an expectation here but yeah his acting was not giving... its to much actually that some of the scene was hard to watch. But if we'll talk about what is good in this series... probably the character of Tutor which really gives me a butterfly in stomach. He's so soft to Jade^^

The phasing of the story was to slow... I think the story got better in episode 6. I finished it because I really love tutoryim... but if you don't want to disappoint then maybe you can skip this series.

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If you liked Jade in the main story, you'll also warm to this series.

unfortunately, i could never really get on with jade and mai. both characters, like the story, are very flat in my opinion. king and uea's relationship is also different, more childish i would almost say, than in the main series. i think that's a shame, because i've always liked their energy a lot. But to mention a few positive aspects, I really liked the intimate conversations between king/mai and especially those between jade/uea, very believable with nice dialogue! The relationship between Tong and Gus is also great and I was surprised by the bed scenes at the end, beautifully staged, nice lighting.
to summarise, i didn't really like the show but it wasn't really bad either. unfortunately i could never really warm up to jade's character so the whole series was exhausting to watch

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The Middleman’s Love was a deal breaker

As a fan of ‘Bed Friend’ and the character Jade, I wanted to love this. In fact, I did for a little while.

Episode one was not a strong opener but I have a soft spot for cringy and slapstick comedy so it was bearable. I highly enjoyed episodes two to four, five started falling off but it was still tolerable. My biggest complaint would be the introduction of the second or even third couple if we count KingUea. This was a sequel/spin-off of the second couple from ‘Bed Friend’ so why introduce a new couple? It might be nitpicking and introducing new couples isn’t a crime but the new couple got so much screen time (I skipped most of their later parts because it was so repetitive and unattractive to watch). Their romantic relationship was also poorly developed and executed.

What the show did well:
- The comedy. It was my cup of tea and I enjoyed Yim as Jade. Some of the better execution would be when Jade was standing in front and middle while they were deciding what to eat as a group. He told everyone to come closer like he was ready to whisper, but he ended up shouting. I laughed so hard
- The consistency between Jade’s relationship with King and Uea. Jade and Uea being the lovey-dovey giggly besties is one of the better parts of the show. Jade’s constant butting heads with King was also great. I only wished his friendship with Gun was more apparent like in Bed Friends. They were inseparable at one point and in Middleman’s Love, they hardly hung out together unless it was a group/company hangout.
- Jade’s family is so precious. The introduction of his brother was funny and his sister is just a ray of sunshine.
- The shot of Jade’s family having dinner in episode 3. They shot it through the door to make it look like a live picture-perfect family. That was brilliant.
- Tutor covering Nunew’s song…OMG, can we get an official cover?

What the show didn’t do so well:
- As comedy was the baseline of this series, continuity errors and bad editing are bound to happen. But there’s only so much you can do before it becomes unforgivable. When Jade introduced the dog to Mai, there was a time when he was supposed to be squatting down beside the dog, but an editor decided to insert a blur, close up of the dog, and in the back, you can see Yim’s shoes as he walked by before they cut back to Jade still being next to the dog. That part stuck out like a sore thumb.
- I don’t know if perhaps Tutor can’t drive in real life or it was a lack of budget but every time Mai and Jade are in the car, they never move. Even when Tutor was ‘driving’ the scenery through the windows remained the same. That was awkward.
- The timeline wasn’t clear and the pacing didn’t seem to match it whatsoever
Jade’s fear of flickering lights in the daytime was never explained…
- Tong and Gus’ relationship shouldn’t have happened. Their amount of screen time didn’t contribute to the main storyline. Their personalities were also swapped halfway through the show. Gus went from a nice, friendly guy to a pouty kid who isn’t easily pleased. Tong wasn’t easily pleased or expressive but was all of a sudden very intimate and clingy. Gus’ relationship with his mother came out of nowhere and went nowhere.
- The NC scenes. Once Mai and Jade got together, they lost their spark and sweetness. The sexual tension heightened and the show attempted to become Bed Friend 2.0.
- Mai’s relationship with his family gave me mixed signals. Sometimes he'd be sweet on the phone with his mom. Other times, he seems annoyed with her. For some time it sounded like he had a falling out with his father and even brother but it was never clear. They also seemed like fine people by the finale episode.
- I'm not going to talk about Jade's uncalled-for, unexpected outburst at his family's lunch gathering because what was that? There was no build-up for that as far as I'm aware.

Though I’m happy to see Uea again, I’m glad this series only has eight episodes.
Unless you’re a fan of the actors, MaiJade, or clumsy comedy, I can’t imagine you’d enjoy this one very much.

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